A study presented at the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ECNP) Congress in Barcelona, Spain, suggested that there is a safer way to take drugs such as Valium and Ativan rather than continuously.
Background information in the study, which was led by Simon Davies, DM, MBBS, MRCPsych, MSc, of the Center for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, noted that most studies on benzodiazepines only followed health outcomes for up to 6 to 8 weeks, providing no information on the results of long-term use over months and years.
“Using a large, dataset from Ontario, Canada, we were able to examine how people over the age of 65 with anxiety or insomnia actually took benzodiazepines after starting them. We were also able to link this with other health outcomes,” Dr. Davies explained in a press release. “So this meant considering 57,000 people who took benzos regularly on most days over a period of six months (chronic users) and 113,000 matched people who took the medicines over a similar period, but with breaks where they didn’t take benzodiazepines (intermittent users). We then followed both groups for a further year. The results were striking.
“Our results show that changing the way people take benzos from chronic to intermittent could lead, over one year, to 20% fewer hip fractures 33% fewer in men), 7.5% fewer falls requiring hospitalization or emergency visits, and a 24% fall in the chance of needing to go into long-term care,” Dr. Davies added.
Dr. Davies recommended that when possible, for patients aged older than 65 years with anxiety or insomnia who are taking Ativan, Valium, or another benzodiazepine long term, it would be better to not stay on the drugs continuously. He cautioned that some patients will not be willing to change, but that clinicians can now better understand the excess risks of falls, fractures, emergency visits, long-term care admission, and death associated with chronic use of benzodiazepines compared with intermittent use.
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